Bakesale Betty makes big cuts to its hours, days of service

Customers wait in line at Temescal's Bakesale Betty. Photo: The Chronicle

For the past week, Oakland’s year-old Broadway location of Bakesale Betty has been down to being open one day a week for just three hours: Tuesdays, from 11am to 2pm.

The original Temescal location has cut hours, too, but not as dramatically: Wednesday through Saturday, 11am to 2pm.

Why the drastic, somewhat worrisome changes?

Two weeks ago, co-owner Michael Camp says that they just got overwhelmed with too much business one Tuesday, and he realized that they hit a point and couldn’t sustain either location if they were spread so thin. But he also realized that he was absolutely committed to the Uptown location.

His solution? Dedicate all Bakesale Betty resources to one location at a time: Tuesdays at Broadway, and Wednesday through Saturday at Temescal. He says this will allow them to keep quality up and at the same time, create a new foundation for training a new generation of staff.

“It’s more of an in-house decision. It doesn’t reflect the market — there’s crazy demand still,” he says.

And so, the Broadway location is open only three hours a week. Camp likens it to a pop-up, and assures that customers should expect the highest quality, because it’s running on all resources on Tuesdays.

“It’s about throwing a party every day and making sure it absolutely stays that way,” he says. “It requires consolidating resources and injecting new blood into the shop. And it will take some time.”

The plan, as of today, is to keep this arrangement at least a few more months, through the end of the year. They’re hoping to extend hours again in the spring.